Buff up and tweak alliances, don't nerf solos

[P_I]

There have been a lot of gripes and whining this round about solos being too powerful, alliance number decreasing and stuff like that. We already have a thread about nerfing the solos. This one is about what could make alliance play more enjoyable, easier, and maybe a little safer.

#1 - Alliance armies
The alliance armies are hard to get, they cost a shitload of money. I've heard they were used back in the old days, around r09 or something. The use of alliance armies have returned this round (because of the smaller allliance size). The return is a good thing, imo, because they give the alliance the option of having some common troops to fight off random inc, solos, rushes, and such. They also give us the use of HQ as a place of safety, so it's possible to run the troops off for a while without hitting sleep.

• We need a way for the one online player at nightwatch or whenever to get control of the alliance army. More about this later.
• The maximum number of alliance troops should depend on the total alliance value. That way, alliance armies can grow with the alliance. My suggestion is that the combat value of the alliance troops should equal 2-3 alliance members. If the alliance drops in value, the army remains until killed, but cannot be expanded until the alliance members get back to their former size.
• Use of alliance armies will make it a lot easier to identify alliances, and fighting at HQs will make alliance wars more common. These are my predictions, I've never been in a war involving a HQ, but it might be a good twist.

#2 - Officers
There are few players active more than 8 hours a day. This includes the officers of the alliances. The leader has extensive powers including inviting and kicking members. This should, imo, stay with one player. The MO and CO are the combat leaders, and need to be online when things happen. To rephrase that, the online players need to be MO and CO. This is especially important with alliance armies reappearing. This doesn't work when the leader picks his officers.

Imagine an American leader. He logs off when his 8 hour shift is done, and gives MO to an Aussie or a Korean or something. Then, when the Aussi logs off, he can't pass MO on to an Euro because he needs the leader to do that. Might be lucky and have the leader check in before work or something, but most likely not. Then the alliance is without an effective MO for 8 hours, until the leader is back on.

• The leader should be able to have a group of players in his alliance marked as lieutenants or something. Six or so out of 15-25 alliance members would be a good number.
• When an officer logs off, the duty should be passed on automagically to an online lieutenant. This should ensure that there are always a player online to command the alliance army. Ofc, if one lieutenant don't want the duty, he can just hit logout to pass it on to another (if available). If no lieutenants are available, the first to log in gets the duty.

#3 - Contactability and availability
People who say they choose solo over allied do this because they don't want their alliance bugging them when they're at work, sleeping, or with friends. Letting the others know when they are not to bug you would be good... Yes, most allies have a PWYLO thread in pols, but checking it takes time and effort.

• The game could allow this a bit more by letting people set their "status". The concept of status should be known to all facebook users: "PI is sleeping, Do Not Distrurb", "PI is doing the dishes, please distract". Status should of course only be visible to alliance members, either as a "player note" added to the hover box with ranking stats, or in the alliance overview, with the online status.
• The manual or wiki should include instructions for setting an IRC highlight, using IRC and advanced IRC functions is not common knowledge anymore.

These were just a few suggestions, hope some of you agree with them.

 

[pinpower]

Re: Buff up and tweak alliances, don't nerf solos

2 things...first of all

the duty should be passed on automagically to an online lieutenant

for the use of "automagically" alone you are a god! Your suggestion improves in my eyes!


On a more serious note just one initial thought:

The maximum number of alliance troops should depend on the total alliance value. That way, alliance armies can grow with the alliance. My suggestion is that the combat value of the alliance troops should equal 2-3 alliance members. If the alliance drops in value, the army remains until killed, but cannot be expanded until the alliance members get back to their former size.

I know the common thing to do is be all "ooo, hurt the top, dont let them have it easy" which normally annoys me...as if people put in that much time and effort they deserve to have something to show for it...

BUT, if available alliance army size depended on the size of the alliance the rank 1 alliance would become even more untouchable than they currently are (and if they gain a small lead they would be able to obtain a powerful army before chances of a resistance are organised...especially with the lazyness of everyone!!!


However, i do agree that nerfing solo's isnt the answer, and instead some subtle but rewarding incentives need to be added for ally play.


Also, on a side note: Welcome to the forums, i dont know how long you've been playing...you seem to have a bit of know how but if you are also new to the game...HI!!!

 

[atsanjose]

Re: Buff up and tweak alliances, don't nerf solos

i 100% agree with the title of your thread, but i think the suggestions you made arent enough alterring of the allianceplay.

#1 - Alliance armies
as pin said: providing more alliance troops for the bigger alliances would not be fair play, but i do agree with that alliance troops should be a bigger benifit for the alliance then that they atm are.

#2 - Officers
good addition to the game and there are a few more threads about this idea more the less, so i bet Azzer examend and judged them. one small remark.
i think automaticly is too ehhh automatic better give the current co/mo the option to pass on position to someone in the alliance, so its always possible to back track who was who at a given time.

#3 - Contactability and availability
good suggestion and it might work to some level, another comment: the "status" of someone should also be shown when theyre offline.
And wtf do you mean with "known to all facebook users"
there enough people who never even heard of facebook but iam sure you mean "known to all alliance members"

keep the suggestions coming *thumbs up*

 

[Augustus]

Re: Buff up and tweak alliances, don't nerf solos

The title of this thread is definitely heading in the right direction.

The maximum number of alliance troops should depend on the total alliance value. That way, alliance armies can grow with the alliance. My suggestion is that the combat value of the alliance troops should equal 2-3 alliance members. If the alliance drops in value, the army remains until killed, but cannot be expanded until the alliance members get back to their former size.

As others have mentioned, this will favour high ranked alliances. Perhaps to make things more interesting, the scale could be swapped around. So the more value you have, the less your HQ troops grow in numbers. This would give the lowest rank Alliances some sort of bonus that could help them defend more effectively. It would also help keep the fight for rank 1 going for longer than normal.

The leader should be able to have a group of players in his alliance marked as lieutenants or something. Six or so out of 15-25 alliance members would be a good number.

There was mention in the Creators Day Thread that there could be modifications that allowed the Leader to grant access to the officer options to more than one alliance member. This would solve the problem of certain privileges such as the Alliance Military page and Officers Alliance Overview being unaccessible to everyone. It would also allow the Leader to customise it depending on the level of trust he has with each individual Ally member.

People who say they choose solo over allied do this because they don't want their alliance bugging them when they're at work, sleeping, or with friends. Letting the others know when they are not to bug you would be good... Yes, most allies have a PWYLO thread in pols, but checking it takes time and effort.

I don't think this really addresses the problem. I have never come across a game where personal details are expected from you and there is the invasion into your life that is experienced in Bush. It is becoming a 24 hour game, where activity will mostly determine how you fair in the rankings. This has to change, as IMO this is what causes people to leave the game.

I personally think that improving HQ units, giving bonuses to Ally members (either cash, seed or troop based) and making the game less centered around heavy activity is the only way to expand the playerbase AND get people into Alliances.

 

[Steve_God]

Re: Buff up and tweak alliances, don't nerf solos

Brilliant suggestions about the contactivity and officers

 

[f0xx]

Re: Buff up and tweak alliances, don't nerf solos

Nice suggestions indeed, I like the one about setting your status (even though someone else has already suggested that in the past), Augustus's suggestion about setting levels of trust of members and giving them officer positions according to that is not bad too.

HQ armies need much more working and cosindering though, I personally thinkg that a 20% of the total value is a good idea. I don't like the idea about a floating limit about the troops. Bigger alliance should mean more HQ troops, not the opposite. Pershaps allow alliances to have their own acreage and grow their own seeds so they can produce their own funds like that, I don't know, the subject is so vast that it needs a seperate thread I think.

 

[Polo]

Re: Buff up and tweak alliances, don't nerf solos

There have been a lot of gripes and whining this round about solos being too powerful, alliance number decreasing and stuff like that. We already have a thread about nerfing the solos. This one is about what could make alliance play more enjoyable, easier, and maybe a little safer.

I do think solos are overpowered, and have been since the introduction of pure solo. Before pure solo, there were very few solos in the top 100 (usually around 10) and those who were are generally very skilled players. However, nerfing them into oblivion isn't the answer. There needs to be some nerfs to solos and some buffs to alliances. Your suggestions are very good though.

#1 - Alliance armies
The alliance armies are hard to get, they cost a shitload of money. I've heard they were used back in the old days, around r09 or something. The use of alliance armies have returned this round (because of the smaller allliance size). The return is a good thing, imo, because they give the alliance the option of having some common troops to fight off random inc, solos, rushes, and such. They also give us the use of HQ as a place of safety, so it's possible to run the troops off for a while without hitting sleep.

• We need a way for the one online player at nightwatch or whenever to get control of the alliance army. More about this later.
• The maximum number of alliance troops should depend on the total alliance value. That way, alliance armies can grow with the alliance. My suggestion is that the combat value of the alliance troops should equal 2-3 alliance members. If the alliance drops in value, the army remains until killed, but cannot be expanded until the alliance members get back to their former size.
• Use of alliance armies will make it a lot easier to identify alliances, and fighting at HQs will make alliance wars more common. These are my predictions, I've never been in a war involving a HQ, but it might be a good twist.

It would be nice for HQs to be used more in the game as currently they're pretty pointless. I've never been in an ally which has actually used the HQ troops. In reply to people saying this would benefit the top too much: how is it any different to the top players having more troops than the smaller ones currently? However, how about basing the limit entirely on the value of the rank 1 alliance? Say, everyone can buy HQ units worth up to 10% of the value of the rank 1 ally.

#2 - Officers
There are few players active more than 8 hours a day. This includes the officers of the alliances. The leader has extensive powers including inviting and kicking members. This should, imo, stay with one player. The MO and CO are the combat leaders, and need to be online when things happen. To rephrase that, the online players need to be MO and CO. This is especially important with alliance armies reappearing. This doesn't work when the leader picks his officers.

Imagine an American leader. He logs off when his 8 hour shift is done, and gives MO to an Aussie or a Korean or something. Then, when the Aussi logs off, he can't pass MO on to an Euro because he needs the leader to do that. Might be lucky and have the leader check in before work or something, but most likely not. Then the alliance is without an effective MO for 8 hours, until the leader is back on.

• The leader should be able to have a group of players in his alliance marked as lieutenants or something. Six or so out of 15-25 alliance members would be a good number.
• When an officer logs off, the duty should be passed on automagically to an online lieutenant. This should ensure that there are always a player online to command the alliance army. Ofc, if one lieutenant don't want the duty, he can just hit logout to pass it on to another (if available). If no lieutenants are available, the first to log in gets the duty.

This is indeed a problem. As Augustus said, someone suggested that the alliance leader be able to give different people in the alliance different "permissions", such as posting on gpols, deleting threads in pols, or controlling the HQ army. Allowing more than the current 2 people access to the HQ army would be great. Azzer also seemed to be fond of this idea.

#3 - Contactability and availability
People who say they choose solo over allied do this because they don't want their alliance bugging them when they're at work, sleeping, or with friends. Letting the others know when they are not to bug you would be good... Yes, most allies have a PWYLO thread in pols, but checking it takes time and effort.

• The game could allow this a bit more by letting people set their "status". The concept of status should be known to all facebook users: "PI is sleeping, Do Not Distrurb", "PI is doing the dishes, please distract". Status should of course only be visible to alliance members, either as a "player note" added to the hover box with ranking stats, or in the alliance overview, with the online status.
• The manual or wiki should include instructions for setting an IRC highlight, using IRC and advanced IRC functions is not common knowledge anymore.

The activity/contactability required by the game (especially at the top) is pretty ridiculous and needs to be addressed. Your suggestion about HQs should help this a lot as there will generally be access to a lot more troops (and ones which won't be out in an attack). Your "status" suggestion would be a nice addition if Azzer can be bothered to code it. DarkSider asked me to do something similar with the use of my extension but it would be quite complicated as it would need access to a server to hold the statuses.

An idea for reducing the activity required that I posted in Silence's thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1248 is:

I agree sleepmode (or a variant of it) is the perfect concept to reduce the activity required to play the game.

I said the following in f0xx's account sitting thread:

It's a nice idea...but as Rosa says, that's what sleep mode is for.

How about changing sleepmode somewhat though? I haven't put much thought into this but anyway:
- You can be attacked in "sleep mode".
- You get 70-90% injury in "sleep mode".
- You get 70-90% income in "sleep mode".
- You cannot send out any attacks or defence in "sleep mode".
- Possibly your max land grab is reduced also?

These changes provide enough benefits to make "sleep mode" viable/useful but do not overpower it either.

Note: you wouldn't be able to tell in game whether people are in sleep mode or not (as you currently can).

 

[P_I]

Re: Buff up and tweak alliances, don't nerf solos

Thanks to all of you for good feedback and happy comments

Some of you have suggested that the alliance armies should not follow the alliance size. Let's have a quick look at some alternatives:
- Alliance armies are a fixed size, this will lead to the armies not being important in late-game, and as such an unneccesary investment of time and money. A bad solution, as I see alliance armies as the alliance "AR troops"
- Alliance armies depend on the size of the lead alliance. This is a better solution, thanks, Augustus, but this might make alliances in the lover ranks impossible to kill without first destroying the alliance army. This might destroy lower-rank warfare.

 

[f0xx]

Re: Buff up and tweak alliances, don't nerf solos

- Alliance armies depend on the size of the lead alliance. This is a better solution, thanks, Augustus, but this might make alliances in the lover ranks impossible to kill without first destroying the alliance army. This might destroy lower-rank warfare.

Actually, they would still need to buy them, I don't see how it will make it overpowered. Good organizers can still use tricks like fake attacks and such do dodge them anyway, not to mention that you cannot send a fake defending mob from the HQ.

And that was Polo's idea btw, which I think is not bad, because for the top alliance it makes 1.5 more players to defend, but for the alliances lower in the rankings it might make it 20 more members.